aaroncobb

An Existential Problem of Evil and A Problem of Divine Hiddenness

2006-06-22T12:05:00.000-07:00

Reflecting on some of Marilyn McCord Adams’s work on horrendous suffering has produced the following reflection. First, in the following, gratuitous evil will be understood as evil which serves no greater good and which can be removed without the creation of an equally bad or worse evil. Second, in the following, I am assuming a Christian conception of God which includes the traditional divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness but also includes more than just these traditional divine attributes.

Now, suppose we distinguish between the following three sorts of problems for the theist.

A logical problem of gratuitous evil: it is inconsistent to believe there is a God and that there is gratuitous evil.

A evidential problem of gratuitous evil: it is irrational to believe that there is God given the evidence of gratuitous evil.

An existential problem of evil: it is impossible for a person to believe that their life has value given that the gratuitous evil they experience gives them good reason to doubt whether their life is of any worth.

Although typical theodicies may address the first two kinds of problems produced by gratuitous evil, I (along with others like Marilyn McCord Adams) believe that they cannot possibly address the existential problem of evil. For a person who is experiencing gratuitous evil, telling him that there is a reason justifying God in allowing this sort of evil will not make it possible for him to believe that his life has any value; it will not undercut the doubts engendered by the evil he is suffering. Furthermore, offering such a reason may actually make his suffering worse by causing him to think that in addition to the fact that his life holds no value for himself it also holds no intrinsic value to God. For example, suppose that one tells a person suffering horrendously as a result of the exercise of another’s free will that free will is such a great good that God is allowing this horrendous suffering for the sake of free will. To the person undergoing the suffering such a reason may cause him to believe that God values free will (even its improper exercise) more than God values the sufferer’s life.

What sort of reason could make it possible for a person to believe that their life has value? It seems to me that the only sort of reason is the experience of God as loving them in the midst of this suffering. But this gives rise, I think, to a form of the problem of divine hiddenness. It seems that often God is experienced either as being most absent in the midst of these kinds of suffering. So, how can a person experience God as loving them in the midst of this suffering, if it is during these times one experiences God as most absent? I have some thoughts, but I want to put this out there to see if anyone else has any thoughts on this issue or can direct me to more discussion of this issue.

Is God's eternal knowledge providentially useful?

2006-06-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

I am teaching a course in the philosophy of religion right now and I encountered an argument which I have reconstructed thus:

1. Eternal knowledge is providentially useful if and only if the knowledge God possesses can be utilized to effect some
kind of change with respect to what is future with respect to creation which will serve God’s purposes more excellently.
2. By hypothesis, God possesses eternal knowledge if God knows in an eternally present “now” all actual states of affairs
which are past, present, and future with respect to creation.
3. But the states of affairs God eternally knows are actual, then there is nothing God can do with the knowledge he
possesses to effect some kind of change in what is future with respect to creation which will serve God’s purposes more
excellently.
4. Hence, eternal knowledge is not providentially useful.

This argument comes in the context of a broader claim that theists who want to affirm traditional conceptions of divine providence should affirm that God possesses middle knowledge. Now, I am tempted to think that the reconstructed argument above is a good argument, but I am not entirely clear how a person who affirms God's eternal knowledge (without accepting the claim that God possesses middle knowledge) would respond to this argument.

16th Annual SLU Graduate Conference

2006-05-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

2006 Saint Louis University Graduate Student Conference: The Epistemology of Religious Belief (http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/philos/grad_conference.html)

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Robert Audi, Professor of Philosophy and David E. Gallo Professor of Business Ethics

Conference Dates: September 21-22, 2006
Location: Saint Louis University
Submission Deadline: May 22, 2006

The graduate students and faculty of the department of philosophy at Saint Louis University invite papers by all graduate students in any area relevant to the conference theme. We will consider papers from a broad range of topics including: evidentialism, reformed epistemology, the relationship between religion and science, natural theology, the possibility and prospects of philosophical theology, and the relationship between faith and reason.

Papers submitted should (i) be no more than 3000 words (or 30 minutes reading time), (ii) include a separate title page containing the author’s name, institution affiliation, address, phone number, and email address, and a one paragraph abstract and (iii) be prepared for blind review.

The paper should be submitted in either of the two following forms:
(1) By mail, with two printed copies per submission and a disk copy (in either Word, RTF or PDF format).
(2) By electronic submission, as an attachment to an e-mail (in either Word, RTF or PDF format).

Send papers to:
Saint Louis University Graduate Student Conference
Aaron Cobb
Saint Louis University Philosophy Department
Saint Louis University
3800 Lindell Blvd., Humanities 130
Saint Louis, MO 63108

For further information or for electronic submissions, please e-mail:
cobbad AT slu DOT edu

Renewal

2006-05-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

I hope to renew my blogging in the weeks to come. It has been an semester of exams for me: I have officially passed four written exams covering major historical time periods in philosophy and unofficially passed (it will be official when the graduate school files all the paper work) an oral examination which consisted of a hodge-podge of questioning from various professors on an assortment of topics. Needless to say, I am happy to be done with this stressful time in my life. And now I get to move on to work on my dissertation. Finally!

Am I a heretic?

2006-01-20T11:57:00.000-08:00

According to this quiz, I am not a heretic. Not bad for a Protestant, eh!

You scored as Chalcedon compliant. You are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you're not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. Officially approved in 451.

Chalcedon compliant

100%

Pelagianism

75%

Modalism

50%

Apollanarian

50%

Monophysitism

42%

Nestorianism

33%

Monarchianism

25%

Adoptionist

25%

Arianism

17%

Socinianism

Donatism

Albigensianism

Gnosticism

Docetism

Are you a heretic?
created with QuizFarm.com

Kant on Hypotheses, part I

2005-08-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Immanuel Kant asserts, “Only that whose certainty is apodictic can be called science proper; cognition that can contain merely empirical certainty is only improperly called science (MN 468: 4).” This restriction seems to imply that legitimate science should not include hypothetical reasoning. But Kant acknowledges a proper hypothetical employment of reason within the context of his distinction between the constitutive and regulative use of reason—a distinction of paramount importance in Kant’s philosophy of science (A647/B675: K1 535). In this post, I will discuss Kant's criteria for acceptable hypotheses. In a subsequent post, I will address their regulative, as opposed to constitutive, use in natural science.

Kant argues that one can use hypotheses in science only if the hypotheses (i) are real possibilities, (ii) are falsifiable explanations of the given consequences, and (iii) explain the given consequences without requiring further support from auxiliary hypotheses.

An hypothesis is a real possibility only if it is internally consistent and consistent with the a priori conditions of possible experience. So, an hypothesis is a real possibility only if (i) it is internally consistent, (ii) it is mathematically constructible according to the forms of sensibility, and (iii) it allows one to order the appearances in such a way as to interpret them as a single, interconnected system. These criteria limit the possible explanations for the appearances, but allow one to provide an explanation of the appearances in accordance with a singular ground.

Kant understands that falsifiability criterion as follows: If the consequences derived from the hypothesis correspond to what is given in the appearances, the hypothesis gains strength, but not apodictic certainty. If the consequences derived from the hypothesis fail to correspond to what is given, the hypothesis is falsified and reason must seek another possible explanation for the appearances.

With respect to auxiliary hypotheses, Kant begins by claiming that the initial plausibility of an hypothesis is its ability to explain all that is given in experience. If, upon further investigation, the original hypothesis accounts for the given consequences only when supplemented by various other hypotheses, the original explanation loses its initial plausibility. Moreover, these auxiliary hypotheses "give rise to the suspicion that they are mere fictions; for each of them requires the same justification as is necessary in the case of the fundamental hypothesis, and they are not, therefore, in a position to bear reliable testimony" (A773/B802; 615-16).

An Interesting Account of "Scientific Rationality"

2005-08-22T17:27:00.000-07:00

Kent Staley, in his book The Evidence for the Top Quark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), distinguishes between some different kinds of epistemological success in scientific practice. An experiment is _evidentially successful_ just in case the results of the experiment are such that they give one reason to believe that the hypothesis tested in the experiment is true. An experiment is _epistemologically successful_ just in case it is evidentially successful and the experimenters are justified in believing that the particular experiment in question is evidentially successful. An experiment is _experimentally successful_ if it is epistemologically successful (and hence evidentially successful) and the experimenters are “able to provide the appropriate scientific community with a justification for believing that (or to provide them with the knowledge that) the experiment is an epistemic success with respect to h” (241).

The most important kind of success for science, Staley argues, is experimental success. Achieving experimental success, however, is difficult. Since scientists recognize the fact that their current epistemic perspective is incomplete and subject to defeat by knowledge gained through future inquiry, they go to great lengths to control for errors and biases to insure that their current epistemic perspective closely approximates an ideal epistemic perspective. Staley argues that an ideal epistemic perspective can be understood to include everything future scientists could discover with respect to their experimental test of a particular hypothesis through subsequent inquiry. This ideal epistemic perspective is more complete than the perspective of current scientists and, as such, provides more reason to believe that the results of an experimental test are less likely to be subject to error as knowledge grows through subsequent inquiry. When they are confident that they have approximated this ideal, they have a very good reason to believe that their hypothesis is likely to be true. Any person in this ideal epistemic perspective is rational in accepting the result of the experimental test as evidence for the hypothesis in question. In order to convince the appropriate scientific community, the experimenter must convince them that the have approximated this ideal. Staley’s arguments lends itself, I would argue, to an interesting account of the rationality of science wherein rationality is a function of experimental success. What do you think?

Descartes's "Deceptive God Argument"

2005-08-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

In the course of the First Meditation, Descartes presents what is commonly called the Deceptive God Argument. It can be formalized thus:

1. Either I was created by God or something less powerful than God.
2. If I was created by God, then God could have made my nature such that I constantly err even in matters which I cannot deny without contradiction.
3. If I was created by something less powerful than God, then my nature could be such that I constantly err even in matters which I cannot deny without contradiction.
4. Either way, it is possible that I err even in matters which I cannot deny without contradiction.

Why should we call this the Deceptive God Argument when clearly the issue is not about God but our nature _whatever_ its origin? In fact, Descartes says that if his origin is something less powerful than God, then he has _even more reason_ to believe that his nature could go wrong. There is too much fuss about the role of God in generating the final stage of doubt in the First Meditation. It is time people recognize the dilemmatic nature of this argument and focus on the true source of the doubts—that is, our nature rather than God’s power.

Who can't be Rational?

2005-08-12T12:38:00.000-07:00

I think that the following is a necessary condition for a person to be rational: the rational person must proportion his belief to evidence.

If this is true, then there are several positions which cannot account for what it means to be a rational person--namely, the externalist, the fideist, and the pragmatist.

The externalist cannot account for what it means to be a rational person because he denies that justification requires accessibility to what justifies the belief. But if the rational person is such because he proportions his belief to evidence, this must be evidence which is accessible to him. Thus, the externalist, by denying the accessibility requirement says that a rational person need no proportion his belief to evidence in order to be rational.

The fideist cannot account for what it means to be a rational person because he denies that a person requires evidence to be justified in believing in something. If one can believe in something without evidence and still be justified, then one can be rational without proportioning his belief to evidence. But this contradicts the original assumption. So, the fideist cannot account for what it means to be a rational person.

The pragmatist argues that where the evidence does not speak in any specific direction, then one is free to allow other considerations to have normative epistemic weight. If this is the case, then one can believe in something for other reasons than evidence and, thus, believe in something beyond what the evidence allows. Again, this contradicts the original assumption and thus serves to show that the pragmatist cannot account for what it means to be rational.

All of these views cannot account for what it means to be a rational person if being rational requires proportioning one's belief to evidence. Thus, if the externalist, the fideist, and the pragmatist desires to show that one can be rational they must provide an argument against the fairly strong assumption that being rational requires proportioning one's belief to the evidence.

Objectivity of Evidential Claims?

2005-08-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

The objectivity of evidential claims is important because it establishes

(i) the approximate truth of mature scientific theories or the likely reality of the entities posited by mature scientific theories,
(ii) a connection between evidence and the likely truth of a hypothesis or the likelihood that an experimental effect is genuine,
(iii) the fact that all known sources of error have been accounted for in one’s experimental tests, and
(iv) the fact that relative to one’s available evidence, one is justified in believing that a particular hypothesis is likely to be true or that a particular experimental effect is probably genuine.

These goals illuminate the fact that objectivity is valuable because it provides a connection both between evidence and truth and between evidence and the rationality of one’s claims. Any account of objectivity which does not satisfy these criteria cannot be an adequate account of the objectivity of evidential claims.

This is the reason I think that Peter Achinstein's account of the objectivity of evidential claims fails. Achinstein argues that any account of objectivity which is relativized to an epistemic perspective cannot adequately account for the connection between the objectivity of the claim and the likelihood of its truth. Claims which are relativized to actual reasoners fail. Claims which are relativized to an ideal epistemic perspective fail. The only claims which satisfy the connection to truth are those which are independent of any perspective whatsoever. If this is the case, it is not clear to me how these claims can be connected to rationality in any way.